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I've already mentioned a couple of nighttime , in camp, stories but they were not my best uninvited encounters. One of my worst/best encounters was in about 89/90 and we were working in a remote area on the bc coast, east of Powell river up the Powell ,Daniels valleys. I was on a cut block, very steep, checking the crews work when i heard a rushing in the bush uphill from me. It was a juvenile black bear charging right at me. I had no where to go and only a second or two so i got big on a stump and returned the favor. He stopped right in his tracks swinging his head back and forth like he'd run out of program, and then he took off and harassed the crew. I felt like i had lost 6 months of my life with that encounter. The next day i had to go up another drainage and was working below the road when i felt eyes on the back of my head. I got nervous cause i rarely feel that . There was nowhere to go , i finished my work within a few minutes and just as i thought i'm done that feeling of eyes on my neck left. I walked along the bottom area to the hillside where i climbed up a 50 ft to the truck and right there standing 15 feet in front of me was a timber wolf. I quickly crouched down as i didn't want to appear aggressive, i wanted to play. We spent a few moments looking into each others eyes and i realized it was not afraid but curious and so was i . It walked away 10 ft and turned around and we looked again. This happened three or four times and i just soaked up the experience of a beautiful encounter and wondering where my jelly sandwich was, (Never cry wolf- Farley Mowett ). Eventually it went out of sight . I felt life renewed somehow. As a side note i found out yrs later that that wolf group in that coastal area was a totally separate genetic group than all the other wolf packs in North America. They had not had much encounter with humans

" The mind creates the abyss, the heart crosses it."

“The measure of your life will not be in what you accumulate, but in what you give away.” ~Wayne Dyer

I experienced having an uninvited guest under my hammock just this weekend.
It was about 2am or so when I felt something brush underneath my hammock. I immediately grabbed my gun, and laid as still as I possibly could. After a little while, I was just about to look around and see what it was, and if it was gone or not. Well it brushed against me again. At this point I was very nervous, especially since my boy was right beside me, and the last thing I wanted was for him to get bitten, or attacked by a dangerous animal.
Finally I thought, oh well minus well get it over with.
When I looked down, I saw the kid of one of my ground dwelling friends, who had rolled off his cot, and down the hill right below me.
Not quite a critter, but definitely uninvited.

Don't let up until you hear cartilage snap, or they crap in their pants. Sal Bandini

Had a bear wake me up in the middle of the night pawing at my hammock and pack that was hanging on the straps. Woke up and looked out just in time to see him nibbling at my toes. Needless to say I started kicking and finally bopped him well enough that he left. Only to return the next morning just wandering around the site as everyone skipped breakfast to get packed and away from him.

Had the same exact thing happen to me last weekend in the Shenandoah NP. I woke up to one pawing my backpack looking for something. Then he came over and sniffed the head of my hammock. Luckily, my weathershield was down so we didn't see each other. It probably wouldn't have been good for either of us if we had. After about an hour or so of traipsing around he left, no harm done.

Last summer in the Czech Republic I shared the forests with roe deer on many occasions. Normally I'd just hear them barking in the distance sounding like a cross between a dog and a howler monkey. One night there were 2 of them running back and forth past the hammock. When I got up to check them out they stopped about 100 yards away staring and barking at me. Seems like very aggressive behavior for deer especially ones that are so small but I suppose mating season had something to do with it.

The summer before I was in a very nice, over-priced campground on the outskirts of Lisbon, Portugal. The grounds are surrounded with high chain link fence and they have regular security patrols. I setup without the tarp and was just falling asleep when I saw or maybe just sensed someone looking down at my face through the mesh. I slipped out of the slit in my HH as fast as I could and started scanning the area with my flashlight but saw nobody nor any movement at all. That really freaked me out and I put the tarp up before going back to sleep and have not dared to sleep in the hammock without it since....

Last spring in the south of Spain I was camped near a dirt road in the middle of this wide plain with nothing much but pine trees and a few cattle. In the evening I was awake in the hammock and heard a vehicle pull up slowly with the lights off and stop near by. I heard the door open and close and soon footsteps approaching. I got my head lamp on and just as the person was about 20 feet away I jumped out with the light shining straight in the guy's face demanding to know what the hell he was doing! He was just a regular Spanish country fellow, rancher or something, who asked me to not shine that light in his face and what I was doing there. I told him I was just camping for the night. He looked at the Bush Buddy stove on the ground with no trace of fire or even coals left in it and apparently satisfied bid me good night and headed back to his vehicle. I think what happened was that he had driven by earlier when I was cooking supper and smelled the smoke. People are very sensitive about possible forest fires in those areas. I think next time I'd better stick to the Trangia.